“I’m not sure you’re real,” I say, smiling up at him.

He smiles back. “Why would you say that?”

“You’re too much. Too handsome, too kind, too smart. Definitely too charming.”

“I am pretty charming, aren’t I?”

I snort.

His fingers move against my skin. It’s a light tapping, a smooth brushing of the fingertips against my cheeks, but it ignites a fire inside me that burns in an instant.

“Cole,” I say, forcing a swallow down my throat.

“Yeah?”

“I didn’t know that my cheeks had a line connecting them to my libido, but it seems that they do.”

His face splits into a wide grin. “Now that’s interesting.”

He widens his stance. He boxes me in, sandwiching me between him and the wall.

Shit.

I’m not sure what I’m doing here. I know what I’m doing here, at the Beck house, but what am I doing in this particular situation?

It’s clear where this is headed. And damn it if I don’t want it. Bad. I want it so bad that I think I need it if I ever want to function without sex brain again.

But is giving in the right choice? Is it the right answer? Is there even a right answer at all, or am I going to be screwed, one way or the other, regardless?

I drag in a lungful of air and will myself to stay calm. At least attempt to keep a handle on your emotions.

I’m opening my mouth to speak, to tell him what I want, when my phone rings in my pocket.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE PALMER

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

PALMER

I still.

Cole drops his hands from my face and watches me with muted disbelief. “Do you ever turn that thing off?”

“No. Someone might need me.” I tug the phone out of my pocket and spot Val’s name. By the time I see it, the call has ended and she’s sent a text to call her later. “It was just Val.”

“You realize that you don’t have to be on call for every person in your life all the time, right?”

“Yeah. Kind of.”

“Do you ever just . . . I don’t know. Turn your phone off?”

“No. What if Ethan needs me?”

He shifts his weight. “Ethan is with my parents right now. I assure you, one million percent, that if anything happened to him, they would call me. Send the National Guard. Hell, Mom would release carrier pigeons if she had to—the woman is unstoppable.”

I laugh.

“Palmer,” he says, lowering his voice a couple of octaves, “I can’t promise you everything you deserve or want.”

“I know, Cole—”

“But fuck, I want you. Right here. Right now.”

Holy shit.